By Cian O’Connell

For a couple of decades Derrygonnelly Harps planned and plotted to become a respected force in the Fermanagh Senior Football Championship.

That is precisely what Harps are presently having accumulated three county titles in a row and Sunday’s latest decider against Ederney St Joseph’s at Brewster Park promises to be interesting.

Brendan Rasdale, who continues to serve Derrygonnelly in a plethora of roles including joint manager and PRO, is encouraged by how the club has started to deliver consistently in Fermanagh.

“We are keen to maximise it while we can,” Rasdale admits. “If you go back in Fermanagh over the last couple of decades from the 70s, 80s, every decade has had a team that has picked up three or four Championships.

“We are keen to sort of establish ourselves, if we can at all, as a club that is talked about, to really put ourselves on the map as a big name club, definitely. You have got to maximise it while the chance is there.”

Talented teams have been stitched together by Derrygonnelly, but Rasdale acknowledges that the silverware rewards the time, energy, and commitment invested in the juvenile ranks. “To be honest I'd say you could go back to the early 90s regarding our underage work,” Rasdale says.

“We really hit on a good team in the mid 90s into the 2000s and really we had enough talent floating about in the club for that 15 years, all we got was three Championships in 1995, 2004 when I was actually managing them myself then, and then in 2009.

“So we would feel that we didn't make enough then, we have a good underage tradition. Probably what helps us with the underage is that we have a big parish which gives us a good pick. Maybe not every club has that advantage either.

“We would have a good pick in Fermanagh terms, we would be in the top six or seven. Enniskillen and Lisnaskea are among the three urban centres - Enniskillen, Lisnaskea, and Irvinestown. You'd have one or two clubs after that in terms of that in terms of size and we are in that. We are a good sized club.”

Rasdale, a teacher in St Michael’s Enniskillen, continues to help Derrygonnelly in any way possible. “I was only 31 in 2004, I always had a big mouth,” Rasdale jokes about his continued involvement.

“I was reared in a family with my father before me, he is still alive and is still a good club activist. I'm quite unusual in that we are playing Ederney this Sunday and I teach in St Michael's and I was also involved in Fermanagh development squads and academies over the last few years.

“So I would know nine or 10 of this Ederney team very well, they are great loads, who I would have coached myself over the years. The McCuskers, Conor Magee, all those lads, Benny Gillen, I know all of them lads very well.

“Ederney's strengths are offensively because they have been very impressive offensively. This year, even in the League, they have been very, very sharp and hard to contain when they are on the offensive.”

St Michael’s relevance the gritty Fermanagh football story is well documented and Rasdale accepts that it occupies a central role. “A lot of footballers go through our school,” Rasdale remarks. “It is quite interesting, no matter who we are playing when the game is over I'm meeting endless guys, who played Corn na nOg or First Years for me.

"You just know a lot fellas, so you respect them, they are good lads. Even though I want to beat them, I would wish them well, I'm a sportsman at the end of the day. St Michael's would have players from every single club in the county. Every year 100 boys would come into First Year and they are coming from all 20 clubs in the county.”

Derrygonnelly’s flag has been planted on the summit of the Fermanagh game since 2015, but Rasdale reckons the health of the club game is still in a reasonable state.

“I think the Championship is the proper gauge,” Rasdale replies. “I think for example the Intermediate Championship which just finished was quite competitive, it was well contested, good hardy games. I think the same thing in the Senior Championship. There has been a few good games.

“A lot of Fermanagh League games are played while missing inter-county players. If you are playing games in May, June, July between holidays and college and A levels clubs have found it difficult to deal with that.

“I've felt that some clubs have found it hard because they haven't the strength in depth. That impacted negatively on the League, but at the same time you have to say fair play to the County Board because games for club players meant we were playing football every week.

“You had to be able to keep going. It was tough for some clubs to keep fielding good teams, but the Championship has shown that teams are competitive, they know each other well. Fermanagh has only got 20 clubs, the Senior Championship only has eight clubs. So everybody knows each other really well.

“We played Roslea in the first round and Garrison in the Semi-Final. By luck of the draw we meet them quite a lot, this is the first time that we meet Edenery since 2015, I think. Teams know each other well in Fermanagh and the Championship hasn't been bad.”

On the line Rasdale stands alongside Sean Flanagan, who captained Harps to their first Fermanagh crown in 1995. Derrygonnelly Harps will always be high on the agenda. “Yes, and he was also the manager in 2009,” Rasdale states about Flanagan. “We are joint managers and we have Emlyn Burns, who is our assistant.

“We are blessed with that and even our underage structures would be very much blessed with fellas who have done well as footballers in our club and who turn around to give back. I would put it as bluntly as that, we are just very lucky with that.

“It is a nice thing, a lot of the guys managing teams at the minute their parents might have managed us when we were playing together. I suppose it is typical enough if you think about it, but it is nice.”